# DigitalOcean App Platform vs Render

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/digitalocean-app-platform-vs-render/

Every value below is read from DigitalOcean App Platform's and Render's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | DigitalOcean App Platform | Render |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| What the free plan includes | Up to three apps that use only static site components. Anything with a running service falls outside the free tier. | Free instances of web services, Render Postgres and Key Value, plus static sites at no charge. Free instances carry documented limitations. |
| Memory (entry plan) | 512 MiB on the $5.00 container, the cheapest paid size; 1 GiB from $10.00. | 512 MB RAM (with 0.5 CPU) on the 0.5c-512mb instance type, the cheapest paid web service compute plan. |
| Included bandwidth | 50 GiB a month on the $5.00 container, rising with size to 900 GiB on the largest dedicated one. | Hobby: 5 GB; Pro: 25 GB; Scale: 1 TB; Enterprise: Custom |
| Autoscaling | Limited | Limited — Requires a Pro workspace plan or higher; scales on CPU or memory utilisation targets. |
| Regions | Thirteen regions: NYC, AMS, SFO, SGP, LON, FRA, TOR, BLR, SYD, ATL, RIC, MKC and MEM. The availability table marks dynamic and static-site components separately, but those marks are images, so which app type is offered where is not readable as text. | Oregon, USA; Ohio, USA; Virginia, USA; Frankfurt, Germany; Singapore |
| Uptime SLA | 99.95% monthly uptime, promised separately for each App Platform App Component Instance rather than for the account. Below it, service credits run 10%, 30% and upward as the month gets worse. | Enterprise only, and custom-priced. Hobby, Professional and Organization publish no uptime SLA, and no percentage is given for the Enterprise one. |
| Support on entry paid plan | The DigitalOcean account-level support plans, not an App Platform product: free ticket-based support 24/7 for everyone, then Developer $24/month, Standard $99/month with live chat, Premium $999/month with a dedicated Slack channel. | Chat support, from the free Hobby plan upward. Professional ($25/month plus compute) adds seats, bandwidth and features but no separate support tier. |

## Where they differ

### What the free plan includes

- DigitalOcean App Platform: Up to three apps that use only static site components. Anything with a running service falls outside the free tier. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/details/pricing/))
- Render: Free instances of web services, Render Postgres and Key Value, plus static sites at no charge. Free instances carry documented limitations. ([source](https://render.com/docs/free))

### Memory (entry plan)

- DigitalOcean App Platform: 512 MiB on the $5.00 container, the cheapest paid size; 1 GiB from $10.00. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/details/pricing/))
- Render: 512 MB RAM (with 0.5 CPU) on the 0.5c-512mb instance type, the cheapest paid web service compute plan. ([source](https://render.com/docs/compute-plans))

### Included bandwidth

- DigitalOcean App Platform: 50 GiB a month on the $5.00 container, rising with size to 900 GiB on the largest dedicated one. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/details/pricing/))
- Render: Hobby: 5 GB; Pro: 25 GB; Scale: 1 TB; Enterprise: Custom ([source](https://render.com/docs/outbound-bandwidth))

### Regions

- DigitalOcean App Platform: Thirteen regions: NYC, AMS, SFO, SGP, LON, FRA, TOR, BLR, SYD, ATL, RIC, MKC and MEM. The availability table marks dynamic and static-site components separately, but those marks are images, so which app type is offered where is not readable as text. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/details/availability/))
- Render: Oregon, USA; Ohio, USA; Virginia, USA; Frankfurt, Germany; Singapore ([source](https://render.com/docs/regions))

### Uptime SLA

- DigitalOcean App Platform: 99.95% monthly uptime, promised separately for each App Platform App Component Instance rather than for the account. Below it, service credits run 10%, 30% and upward as the month gets worse. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/sla/app-platform))
- Render: Enterprise only, and custom-priced. Hobby, Professional and Organization publish no uptime SLA, and no percentage is given for the Enterprise one. ([source](https://render.com/pricing))

### Support on entry paid plan

- DigitalOcean App Platform: The DigitalOcean account-level support plans, not an App Platform product: free ticket-based support 24/7 for everyone, then Developer $24/month, Standard $99/month with live chat, Premium $999/month with a dedicated Slack channel. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/support-plans/))
- Render: Chat support, from the free Hobby plan upward. Professional ($25/month plus compute) adds seats, bandwidth and features but no separate support tier. ([source](https://render.com/pricing))

## Which should you choose?

Pick DigitalOcean App Platform if Apps deployed from a Git repository or a container image where a flat per-container price is easier to reason about than usage metering — $5 a month buys 1 shared vCPU, 512 MiB and 50 GiB of bandwidth.

Pick Render if Workloads that need real background workers and persistent processes alongside web services, deployed from a repository or a Dockerfile. Managed Postgres and static sites run on the same platform.

Consider something else: DigitalOcean App Platform — The free tier covers static sites only, three apps with no running service, and autoscaling is listed only against the dedicated container sizes — a small service scales by hand or not at all.

Consider something else: Render — Free web services spin down after 15 minutes without traffic, which makes the free tier unsuitable for anything that must answer immediately.

## Documented by only one

- Kind of free offer: Render: Free tier
- Credit card to start: Render: No — Free services run without one until the workspace's included bandwidth or pipeline minutes run out.
- When the free offer ends: Render: Free Postgres databases expire 30 days after creation, with a 14-day grace period to upgrade to a paid plan.
- Entry paid plan: DigitalOcean App Platform: $5.00 per month for the smallest container: 1 shared vCPU, 512 MiB of RAM and 50 GiB of bandwidth.
- Pricing model: Render: The Hobby plan does not have a monthly fee, so you only pay for usage.
- When you exceed a cap: Render: Pipeline minutes: overage is auto-purchased, but with no payment method or once the monthly spend limit is reached Render stops running pipeline tasks, builds included.
- Storage (entry plan): Render: No persistent disk is included on any instance type, including the entry `0.5c-512mb` plan; services run on an ephemeral filesystem unless a persistent disk is attached separately
- Sites or apps included: Render: 25 total services on the Hobby workspace plan (Render's entry workspace tier, compute billed separately); also limited to a single team member
- Monthly visits cap: Render: No request-count cap is published; traffic is capped by outbound bandwidth, 5 GB/month included on Hobby and 25 GB on Pro.
- Build allowance: Render: 500 build-pipeline minutes a month on Hobby, 1,000 on Pro, 5,000 on Scale. Minutes, not builds.
- Concurrent builds: Render: One active build per service, platform-wide on all plans; a new build cancels the in-progress one for that service
- Managed connection pooling: Render: Supported
- Git deployment: Render: Supported
- Docker deployment: Render: Supported
- Containers: Render: Supported
- Scheduled jobs: Render: Supported
- Persistent processes: Render: Supported
- Persistent storage: Render: Supported
- Managed databases: Render: Supported
- Edge network: Render: Supported
- Scales to zero: Render: Supported
- Response time commitment: DigitalOcean App Platform: Under 8 hours on Developer ($24/month), the cheapest paid support plan; under 24 hours free, under 2 hours on Standard, under 30 minutes on Premium. Account-level and not severity-based.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Included bandwidth: DigitalOcean App Platform or Render?**

DigitalOcean App Platform: 50 GiB a month on the $5.00 container, rising with size to 900 GiB on the largest dedicated one.
Render: Hobby: 5 GB; Pro: 25 GB; Scale: 1 TB; Enterprise: Custom

**Should I choose DigitalOcean App Platform or Render?**

Pick DigitalOcean App Platform if Apps deployed from a Git repository or a container image where a flat per-container price is easier to reason about than usage metering — $5 a month buys 1 shared vCPU, 512 MiB and 50 GiB of bandwidth.
Pick Render if Workloads that need real background workers and persistent processes alongside web services, deployed from a repository or a Dockerfile. Managed Postgres and static sites run on the same platform.